Summer in the Land of Skin

by Jody Gehrman

  “‘The only thing that’s kept me here this long is Anna. She’s a flower, man. She’s a total source of amazement, and if I think of her for more than a minute at a time, I’ll lose my nerve.’” He clears his throat again.

  “‘I’m a cynical bastard by now, you know that, even though it’s been years. For too long I’ve been tired and cold. I thought she was plenty reason to stay. Anna, I mean. But I’m a shell of a man. She has the eyes of a newborn still, even though she’s eleven years old—can you believe it? Eleven. If I stay, she’ll absorb the ashes I’m full of. I want her to taste everything, like we did. The grass of Golden Gate Park. The music. Everything this fucking frightening world has to offer.

  “‘Call Helen soon. I’m asking you nicely.

  “‘Stay real, brother. You’re in me and you know it. I’m sorry.

  “‘Chet.’”

  By now tears are streaming down my cheeks, and I keep my head down, hide my face with my hair. The wind smells of fish and chips from down the street. His voice is thick and fatherly. “It’s tough, Anna. I know that. I just—” His voice cracks, and I let out a breath full of sobs. “You should never think he didn’t love you. He did. He really did, I swear.” I wrap my arms around his neck and hold on.

  For a split second, he hesitates, but then he grips me tightly, and the warmth of his body—so human, so real—undoes me, and I cry until I can’t cry anymore.

  Thirteen nights after Arlan left, I dream a dream that will be burned into my brain forever. I wake from it chilled and terrified, sitting bolt upright on the couch, electric with adrenaline. Leaves slap restlessly against the windows. The old house creaks in the darkness. The microwave in the kitchen reads 3:22.

  I creep into Lucy’s room, careful to move in silence. I need to find something of Arlan’s. I open the closet; the door creaks quietly and I hold my breath as Lucy rolls over, sighs, tucks one hand under her pillow. I find a flannel shirt crumpled up on the floor, hold it to my face and inhale the smell of him.

  Lucy mumbles something and I turn, startled, but her eyes are still closed and I can tell by the gentle rise and fall of her chest that she’s still sleeping. Something about the sight of her there stops me. I sit at the foot of the bed very gently, not wanting to wake her. I think of the first day I met her, how she stood there with one hand on her hip, squinting at me suspiciously. “Who are you supposed to be?” Her dark hair moved this way and that in the wind, restlessly.

  I go back to the couch, clutching Arlan’s shirt. In the morning, I will stash it in my backpack. For now, I need it near me. The dream comes back to me when I close my eyes: Arlan’s limp body, lying facedown on that polyester earth-toned bedspread, the back of his head a grisly mass of fresh, glistening blood. It’s Arlan and yet it’s my father, too. I walk toward the bed, and everything is absolutely real: the texture of the cheap, dirty shag carpet under my bare feet, the smell of whiskey and blood in the air. I reach out one hand and touch his exploded skull, feel the wet of brain and blood on the tips of my fingers. I touch my fingers to my lips, tasting salt.

  I try to think of other things. I picture Rosie in her pink fur coat. The Golden Gate Bridge with the fog rolling in along the bay. The beautiful guitar Bender and I built—the rich, streaky grain of that koa. When none of this helps, I get up, light a candle and cradle my guitar in my arms. I play a few notes, trying to remember the songs my father taught me. I find the right chords for “Folsom Prison Blues” and, strumming very softly, begin to sing under my breath: “I hear the train a comin’, it’s rollin’ round the bend. I ain’t seen the sunshine since—”

  “Anna?” I jump. There’s Lucy in the doorway, looking thin and pale as a corpse.

  “Jesus, you scared me.”

  She comes over and sits next to me on the couch. I put the guitar down. She leans into me and sighs against my neck. “I miss him,” she whispers.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I know.”

  “When’s he coming back?”

  “Soon,” I tell her, because it seems like the right thing to say. “Soon.”

  I walk into the lobby of the Hilton and there’s my mother, perched with her legs crossed on a dark red leather couch. I wonder if she has picked this couch over the others because it looks so good with the charcoal sharkskin suit she has on, and in particular, the burgundy blouse peeking out from beneath the blazer. I am struck once again by how impeccably stylish she is. Not only that, but she’s fifty, and her calves are still as sleek as a Broadway dancer’s in her sheer black stockings; her face is smooth and the skin above her eyelids doesn’t sag, unlike that of most women her age. The only thing that gives away her half-century of existence is her mouth; there’s an intricate system of creases that fall into place when she puckers around her Virginia Slim, and they still linger long after she’s exhaled.

  “Hello, dear,” she says, hugging me quickly as if we got together just last week. “Good to see you. You’re looking—” she scans my body with her eyes “—thin.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Well, thanks. I guess.” She tosses her nonexistent hair, which tells me she’s nervous. I take pity on her and say, “That suit looks really great on you.”

  “This? Oh, thanks. I got it the last time I was in New York. It travels well.” She looks pleased by my compliment.

  We stand there a moment, not knowing what to say. Her cell phone rings from somewhere deep in her bag and she digs for a moment, retrieves it, removes her clip-on earring with efficient fingers. “This is Helen.” She looks at me with that vacant, faraway stare of people on phones. “Hi, Rosie.” I smile. “Yes, she just got here. She’s—” she looks at her watch “—only fifteen minutes late.” I roll my eyes. “Well, do you want to talk to her?” She frowns as she studies her clip-on earring, a large gold teardrop. “Okay, I’ll tell her. Ciao.” She pushes a button and stashes the phone in her bag again. “Rosie loves you,” she says flatly. “Now, where should we go? Are you hungry? Do you want to shop? What do you have in mind?”

  “Maybe we could just walk,” I suggest.

  “Walk?”

  “Around the city, you know. Look around a little. Talk.”

  “Oh. Well. I suppose that sounds nice.” She looks down at her four-inch heels. “Maybe I should change, then.”

  “Okay. I’ll wait here.”

  She hesitates, tilts her head like a little bird. “No, hell. I can walk just fine in these. They’re very comfortable, actually. I could probably climb Everest in them.”

  “You sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Let’s go.” We move toward the revolving glass doors, and we each catch our own slot.

  “So, what are you doing with yourself these days?” she asks as we march through the bustling financial district, surrounded by a sea of gray suits. I’ve borrowed an orange sweater from Lucinda, and a pair of army-green pants that fit me like pedal-pushers, so I feel a little out of place. But I don’t mind, somehow. I feel strangely confident today. I’ve worn colors on purpose; I want my mother to know I’m no longer the queen of beige.

  “I’ve been apprenticing.”

  She raises one eyebrow and says, “Apprenticing?” as if this is a term she’s not familiar with.

  “Yes.”

  “What trade are you learning—or do I dare to ask?”

  “I’m building guitars.”

  “Is that right?” She lights a new cigarette off the one in her mouth. “Who’s teaching you?”

  “Come on, Mom. Didn’t Rosie tell you all this?”

  “No.” She gives me an innocent look. “Really. She wouldn’t tell me a thing.”

  “Elliot Bender’s teaching me,” I say, watching her face for a reaction. She just stares straight ahead and picks up the pace a bit.

  “Is that right?” She’s quite amazing in her high heels. She hikes along like she’s being timed. “How nice.” She stops abruptly and stares at a dress displayed in a shop window. It’s worn by a silver headless mannequin with its arms out str
aight, like some high-tech scarecrow. “Isn’t that the smartest dress you ever saw? I’ll bet you a hundred dollars it’s acetate. Amazing what they can do with synthetics these days.” She looks at it wistfully for another second, then turns and strides forward again.

  “When was the last time you talked to Bender, anyway?” I ask casually.

  “Bender? Oh, I don’t know. Ages, I guess.”

  “He says you’ve kept in touch.”

  She glances at me sideways. “Well. A note, I guess, here and there.” She fumbles in her bag for her cell phone, pushes a button, studies the screen, stashes it away again. “Anyway, won’t you need to get a job soon?”

  “Wait a second, Mom—slow down, will you? Can we try strolling? I wasn’t thinking we’d power-walk Seattle.”

  The corner of her mouth turns up smugly. “A little out of shape?”

  “I’d just like to have a conversation. Now back up, here. So you and Bender ‘exchange notes from time to time’? What does that mean?”

  Her face is flustered. A thin sweat has broken out through the makeup on her forehead and cheeks. “It was all such a long time ago….” She looks away. “I don’t see that it’s your business, anyway.”

  “Maybe not. I’d just like you to level with me. If it’s none of my business, just say that, don’t try to change the subject.” This feels very strange. I’ve never talked to my mother like this. Our conversations in the past were such complex rituals of avoidance, to question her openly is like willing a river to run in reverse. Her elusiveness is nothing; it’s to be expected. What amazes me is that now I know how to ask.

  “Okay,” she says finally, taking a tissue from her bag and dabbing lightly at her skin. “So I’m telling you—I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Good. Fine. Maybe some other time.”

  We walk in silence for a minute. She’s slowed down a little.

  “And how do you find Bellingham?”

  “I find it rainy,” I say.

  “Yes, well, rainy it most certainly is!” She smiles, then looks uneasy. “From what I hear, anyway.” She squints at me, like she’s trying to remember who I am. “You seem different, somehow. You’ve cut your hair, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah. Months ago.”

  “There’s something…sharper about you.”

  Suddenly I feel strangely buoyant—victorious, though I’ve no idea what I’ve won. “I am different,” I say. “Everything’s different.” I’m tempted to blurt out a frenetic monologue, to tell her the whole story of my summer at once. I’d like to tell her about the Fourth of July and Lucy’s awful family and Arlan—how incredible he is when he touches those perfect brown fingers to the strings and pulls songs from the air. Instead, I just walk next to her, feeling all those days inside me. There’ll be time to tell her, if she’s ever ready to listen.

  “Coffee!” Her eyes light up at the sight of Starbucks on the next corner. “Oh, let’s go! I love having coffee in Seattle.”

  “It’s Starbucks, Mom. They’ve got those everywhere.”

  “Yes, I know. But somehow it tastes better here.” She practically sprints the rest of the block.

  All the chairs and tables are occupied; the café is teeming with pale professionals fresh from their cubicles. They wear expensive glasses and slick, corporate haircuts. She orders a double espresso and I get a mocha.

  We go out onto the sidewalk with our paper cups and sit at a table under a dark green umbrella. The weather is not exactly warm, but it’s not raining, either. The steam escapes through the tiny rectangular holes in our plastic lids, and joins with the white trail snaking from my mother’s cigarette. I sit there thinking about evaporation and fire, steam and smoke—how a cup of coffee can loose little particles of itself to the air. Or take a cigarette—something solid and distinct—light a match, and it drifts off into these fleeting shapes, then nothing. I think of all the smoke my summer’s been filled with—the shapes it makes, graceful and seductive. Soon summer will be gone, too. Even now I can feel the edges of it growing thin, starting to dissipate.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?” she asks, catching me off guard.

  “No,” I say. “Just friends.”

  “Who was the girl that answered the phone the other night?”

  “Lucinda. She’s one of the people I live with.”

  “Someone you knew in college?” She flicks her cigarette against the ashtray stiffly.

  “No,” I say. “I just met her a couple months ago.”

  “And you live with her?” she asks, her eyebrows arching in surprise.

  “Yeah.” I hold her skeptical gaze. “Why not?”

  “Just seems kind of…impulsive.”

  “Didn’t know I had it in me, did you?” I say, unable to keep from smirking. “What about you? Are you dating anyone?”

  She snorts through her nose. “Oh, you know me. A little something here and there, but nothing to speak of.” I picture her in the Fiat, driving a young Scandinavian techy to some expensive hotel in Sausalito, where she can overwhelm him in the dark and then put him on a plane and be done with the whole business by eight the next morning. She must be so lonely.

  “Why did you leave like that?” she asks, and three deep lines appear between her eyebrows. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going?”

  “I just needed to get out.” I drink my coffee and look around, feeling that weird, unexpected buoyancy again. “You had a mother once, right?” I look her in the eye. “You know what it’s like.”

  She studies me another beat and then, shrugging lightly, as if she can’t be bothered with it anymore, says, “As long as you know what you’re doing.” She finishes her coffee and smacks her lips. “Mmm! I tell you! Coffee in Seattle is just better! It really is!” She smiles at the traffic and touches her hair. “Listen,” she says. “I’m leaving in a couple weeks for Amsterdam. I’ve got to lead a training session there for the month of September. I was thinking…why don’t you come?”

  “What?”

  “Why don’t you? You’ve never been to Europe. I’d be busy during the day, but you could explore. We could—” she searches my face “—get to know each other more. You know?” Her voice is very fragile.

  “Mom. Wow. I don’t know what to say….”

  “You don’t have to decide this second.”

  “I’d have to talk to Bender,” I say. “We’ve sort of got a shop.”

  “Don’t decide now,” she repeats, standing up and shouldering her bag. “Just think about it. Let’s mosey again, shall we? That’s the thing about this town, it’s too damn cold!”

  I stand up and we begin to walk again. She’s limping ever so slightly; I suspect she’s developing a blister, but she doesn’t complain.

  “Are you hungry, yet? Can we get a bite soon?” she asks.

  “Sure.” I remember how she used to love to cook when I was little; she’d move around the kitchen, and I’d watch her long veil of golden hair swinging as she sizzled shrimp in a gigantic wok, fried tofu, sautéed vegetables. “Here,” she’d say, blowing a puff of steam from a shrimp clamped between chopsticks; then she’d lean down and pop it into my mouth, her eyes lit up, waiting for praise.

  “It was your aunt Rosie’s idea,” she says.

  “What was?”

  “Inviting you to Amsterdam. She’s thinking of meeting us there.” I picture Rosie traipsing around Amsterdam, and wonder what outlandish costumes she’d come up with for such an occasion—surely only the weirdest would do. “She thinks we ought to…” She trails off, squinting at the sky. “I don’t know. She’s got all sorts of ideas. She thinks I’ve—oh—squelched you, or something.” She flicks a look at me quickly. “What do you think?”

  I pause, composing my answer carefully. “I just felt like I couldn’t talk about—well, most things.”

  “Right,” she says. “Oh! Here, what do you think of this? You like sushi, don’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s so hea
lthy. And maybe they’ve got warm sake. I’m sure they must.” We stand before the menu in the window and she scans it, lips pursed. “Warm sake is just divine on a cold day. It warms you from the inside.”

  “Like Dad,” I say, continuing my last thought. “You wouldn’t let me talk about him.”

  She sighs, considers me in silence, her head cocked a little to one side.

  “I learned a lot this summer,” I say.

  “About what?” Her voice is barely above a whisper.

  “Dad. You. Me.” I smile. “A little about making guitars.” I take a deep breath; the corner of her eye is twitching, but I press on. “You never wanted to talk about anything from the past, and I had to get away from that. I don’t hold it against you, I just wish you hadn’t been so severe. We were always silent about things that mattered most.”

  There’s a long pause. I can see her struggling for what to say next, and when she speaks again her words come out all in a rush. “There wasn’t any conference, Anna.”

  “What?”

  “I lied. I came up here because I—I was crazy with worry. Okay? I missed you.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. Anyway, that’s that.” She lights a fresh cigarette and smiles breezily. I’ve never seen her look so beautiful. “You know, they have some really fabulous museums in Amsterdam. One of them has an exhibit of Hieronymus Bosch. You know him?” I nod. “Well, you’d be amazed if you saw his work up close. It’s very different from the photographs.”

  “I’d like that,” I say.

  “So would I.” Her eyes are shining. “Now let’s get some dinner. I’m ravenous.”

  As I’m driving back to the freeway, I’m thinking so hard about Amsterdam and the way my mother and I actually laughed over sushi—real laughter, the kind from your belly, not the irritating, throaty sort—that I’m completely caught off guard by the sight of Arlan’s station wagon. It’s unmistakable. There’s the fake wood paneling across the side and the chipping, lima-bean-green paint. There just aren’t very many cars like that in Seattle. It’s sitting in the parking lot of a sad little rundown L-shaped building with a neon sign rising out of its flat roof: the Shangri-La Hotel. I yank my steering wheel to the right and pull up next to his car. I get out and peer into the driver’s side window, just to make sure. There’s his brown suede hat and his corduroy jacket sitting in the passenger seat. I’m so shocked I don’t know what to feel. I decide not to think before I act.